After months of stonewalling, which makes you wonder what they were trying to protect.

FBI relents, finally agrees to give House investigators their files on the fake Trump dossier

For months, a House committee has been trying to get to the bottom of the fake Trump dossier matter. They wanted to know who was connected to Fusion GPS when it commissioned Christopher Steele to compile this list of fake allegations against Donald Trump, mostly relying on Russian sources connected to the Kremlin. And they wanted to know how the FBI got it, what the FBI knew about it and how the FBI used it to justify and forward its investigation of the whole Trump/Russia collusion nonsense.

The House Intelligence Committee has been seeking the documents for months, hoping to learn more about the bureau’s relationship to the dossier’s author, a former British spy named Christopher Steele, and whether the document was used by federal investigators to bolster their probe into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) in August had issued two subpoenas to compel the FBI and Justice Department to turn over the documents. He set a Friday deadline for them to comply.

“The FBI got in touch with us yesterday afternoon, and they have informed us that they will comply with our document requests, and that they will provide the documents Congress has been asking for by next week,” Ryan said at his weekly news conference.

“And we expect the FBI to honor that commitment.”

Defying this congressional subpoena with Mueller investigation as the excuse was always a thin cover story, but it became impossible for the FBI to sustain it as we learned over the past several days that the Clinton campaign and the DNC helped pay for the dossier, then failed to disclose it in FEC spending filings. Combined with everything else we’re learning about the FBI’s willingness to look the other way at Hillary’s transgressions, it was becoming clearer by the day that the FBI was covering for itself and its own malfeasance with respect to the dossier and the use of it.

If surrendering these records show that the FBI knowingly used a fake dossier to justify wiretapping Trump campaign officials, then we’ve got a Watergate-level scandal on our hands.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal’s Kim Strassel - who usually is 10 steps ahead of everyone on these stories - expects more bombshells:

We now know where Fusion got some of its cash, but the next question is how the firm used it. With whom did it work beyond former British spy Christopher Steele ? Whom did it pay? Who else was paying it?

The answers are in Fusion’s bank records. Fusion has doggedly refused to divulge the names of its clients for months now, despite extraordinary pressure. So why did the firm suddenly insist that middleman law firm Perkins Coie release Fusion from confidentiality agreements, and spill the beans on who hired it?

Because there’s something Fusion cares about keeping secret even more than the Clinton-DNC news—and that something is in those bank records. The release of the client names was a last-ditch effort to appease the House Intelligence Committee, which issued subpoenas to Fusion’s bank and was close to obtaining records until Fusion filed suit last week. The release was also likely aimed at currying favor with the court, given Fusion’s otherwise weak legal case. The judge could rule as early as Friday morning.

If the House wins, don’t be surprised if those records include money connected to Russians. In the past Fusion has worked with Russians, including lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who happened to show up last year in Donald Trump Jr.’s office.

Continued below...

FBI bombshells are also yet to come. The bureau has stonewalled congressional subpoenas for documents related to the dossier, but that became harder with the DNC-Clinton news. On Thursday Speaker Paul Ryan announced the FBI had finally pledged to turn over its dossier file next week.

Assuming the FBI is comprehensive in its disclosure, expect to learn that the dossier was indeed a major basis of investigating the Trump team—despite reading like “the National Enquirer,” as Rep. Trey Gowdy aptly put it. We may learn the FBI knew the dossier was a bought-and-paid-for product of Candidate Clinton, but used it anyway. Or that it didn’t know, which would be equally disturbing.

The FBI may finally be complying with the congressional subpoena, but Fusion GPS is fighting with everything they’ve got to avoid turning over its bank records. There’s something in those records that Fusion GPS desperately wants to keep from the public view. What is it? Is it something that proves Hillary was much deeper into this than we know even now? Maybe something that shows her collusion with the Russians went much further than currently available evidence shows?

Or does the information show more clearly that this whole thing was premeditated as a setup to make Trump look like the colluder, when everyone knew it was really Hillary who was behind the Russia connection?

Or does it prove the FBI knew the information was phony but relied on it anyway to persuade the FISA court to approve those wiretaps of top Trump campaign officials Carter Page and Paul Manafort?

Whatever is in those bank records, Fusion GPS is terrified of the public seeing it. Sort of makes you eager to see what it is, doesn’t it?

Canada Free Press

Pursuant to Title 17 U.S.C. 107, other copyrighted work is provided for educational purposes, research, critical comment, or debate without profit or payment. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Views are those of authors and not necessarily those of Canada Free Press. Content is Copyright 1997-2018 the individual authors. Site Copyright 1997-2018 Canada Free Press.Com Privacy Statement